


With Finer Sight

by MercuryGray



Category: A Discovery of Witches (TV), All Souls Trilogy - Deborah Harkness
Genre: Fast and Loose History, Gen, Historical References, Men of Science, Science Bros
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-13
Updated: 2019-12-13
Packaged: 2021-02-24 15:26:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21780151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MercuryGray/pseuds/MercuryGray
Summary: Matthew knows what exile looks like, and this is it - an order from his father to go to a city he hates and do a task he loathes. Trade has always been his brother's realm, not his. But he'll find something to make his time in Delft worthwhile - he's sure of it.
Kudos: 11





	With Finer Sight

Amsterdam was Baldwin's city, through and through.

All the ships in the harbor, noisy with trade and the dozen different tongues of commerce, the merchant princes in their counting rooms and coffeehouses, smoking their pipes while they talked of rates of exchange and listened for the tell-tale chink of coin and profit, their houses full of Indian chintz and Turkey rugs and paper-thin China porcelain in white and blue. 

It was Baldwin's idea of paradise - and Matthew's idea of hell.

(All of this before one even considered that this was a proper Protestant country, and one could not get confession or communion here for love or ready money, a nicety that Baldwin would not have even given a thought but which would have delighted him all the same.)

He wasn’t sure why his father had suddenly decided that his younger son would no longer call London his place of residence and sent him on a series of increasingly exasperating errands across what seemed like half of Europe, but it was beginning to wear thin. Had he displeased his father in some way, that he was being punished like this? For it was, indeed, a punishment of sorts, an exile of the worst kind, to be told that one could no longer live in the city one loved, and give up one’s friends, and move to a cold and impersonal house in a cold and drafty city that smelled of fish and rotting wood and a dozen other things that made his skin crawl, and be told that he was now the master of a stack of double-entry ledgers and a string of warehouses and would be expected to turn tidy profits on the same.

It was for these reasons that Matthijs Philipzoon had taken one good look at Amsterdam, closed his brother's stately house on the Herengracht, packed up his family servants and the good furniture, moved south to Delft and taken a house down the street from the Prinzenhof. _ For the porcelain trade _ , he told his brother, watching the coins click in his brother's eyes.  _ For secrecy _ , he told his father, as Calvin and his ilk thundered from their pulpits about the vanity of trade.  _ For the art _ , he whispered to himself. 

If this was to be his exile, then at least he’d damn well find something to enjoy.

It wasn't a complete sham, the story he'd told his older brother about profit. He'd already invested well in several houses turning out the famous blue and white patterned pottery that sold so well. But there was something in the water of Delft that seemed to bring out the artists. Oh, that fellow Rembrandt was plying his trade in Amsterdam and everyone came to his studio like moths to a flame, but Delft's Guild of Saint Luke had a more prosperous air about the place, between the portrait painters and the master potters and the manuscript illuminators. In Amsterdam he would have been stuck under Baldwin's shadow, Boudewijn Philipzoon der Rodewolf who struck a harder deal then any of the other masters on the Bourse, but here in Delft, he was free to be on his own terms, to buy and sell his china and put it about in the Guildhall that Mynheer Philipzoon would pay good coin for good paintings, and good wine, and any oddities that one might encounter in the course of one's travels.

Which was precisely why he was sitting here, in the Draper’s Guildhall, making small chat over cups of  _ kaffe _ with the Master of the Guild and listening for news.

Try as he might, Matthew couldn't bring himself to like coffee. There was too much of the earth about it, the burning and roasting of the beans bringing out flavors and smells that jarred his senses, but the Dutch, it seemed, did not do business without it. Everywhere that there were men of property, there was a dish of the steaming brew, giving off the faint aromas of the Spice Coasts from whence it came, one more reminder of the primacy of the Dutch in their pursuit of trade.

What he would not do for a glass of Burgundy - or Rhenish, even, to come closer to local taste! But the Dutch monopolized no vineyards, so coffee it would have to be. His own cup cooling on the table in front of him, Matthew tried to focus on the smells of wood and small beer, linen and tobacco, and the thousand other aromas of the Guild Hall.

“We were sorry to hear of your brother's departure from Amsterdam, Mynheer Philipzoon. He was a good trading partner to us in the Draper's Guild, both in Amsterdam and here, in Delft. And you say he's gone to Venice?” 

"Our family owns several silk mills there and the business required his attention. Our father was most insistent it be him; he knows the business best." It was true enough; it was Philippe's command that Baldwin go to Venice, and for the family business, too - the family business of governing the Congregation. The silk would be an afterthought, and his sister had it well enough in hand, anyway.

The Master nodded and returned to his coffee and the rest of the room turned slowly to talk of the weather on the Atlantic, and the tenor of things in England and what that would do for the wool markets, and Matthew took another bitter sip of his tepid coffee, eyes searching the room. There were painters aplenty who’d give you scenes like this - Merrymakers in a Brothel, or Roisters at the Inn, or The Tapster’s Friends. That was the fashion, now, in Delft - group scenes. He could already see the painting on the wall of his house - Striking a Deal, someone would call it, and the seller could point out the special way the light hit the blue and white pottery of the cups on the table, and the folds of the cloth, and the shine of the gentlemen’s hats, the whole image an homage to the trades for which the whole town was known - pottery, cloth, and painting.

“Has any thought been given of selling the silk here?” The Master asked, a poor attempt at disguising pure interest as light conversation. “As we know your brother and your family already.”

Matthew hid a smile -  _ why, but of course my business minded brother thought of that!  _ If there was something Baldwin could sniff out faster than any man alive, it was a profit, and the recently rich merchants of Leiden and Utrech and Haarlem were bursting at the seams for ways to show off their new wealth. A man who was prepared to swath their wives in Italian silks (in sober colors, mind, they weren’t complete heathens) could make a pretty penny indeed.

“Doubtless he considered it,” he began, adding a small shrug. “But the cost of shipping - and the market here, I’m sure, is small…”

The Master chuckled and sat up, a dog onto a likely scent. “For a good product, any market can grow. Have you a sample?”

Had he? Of course, conveniently, a small fold of cloth in a Naples Yellow that shone like sunshine in the dark of the guildhall. 

The Master’s eyes closed with appreciation as he touched the silk, feeling it with a practiced touch.  _ You’ll not find better, _ Matthew thought to himself,  _ an eye with finer sight than you could dream of threaded the frame _ . (A vampire’s sense was good for something other than the hunt.) But that, it seemed, was not the only test - the merchant laid the cloth flat upon the table, and called for one of the windows to be opened, and withdrew from his pocket a black velvet bag, containing, it appeared, something heavy and round. A piece of glass, polished to a high shine, through which the cloth could be inspected. Matthew stepped closer. Lenses he’d seen before, but this one was - exquisite.

“What’s that?"

“What, this?” The Master held it up. “Lens - one of the fellows in the Guild takes an interest in these things. He’s ground this one himself - makes it easier to see the weave. This one’s nothing special, but he’s others, fixed to a frame, to see smaller things. An interesting party trick - show you the hair on your head, if you’d let him.”

Matthew took the round of glass in his hand and peered through it, delighted when the fine warp and weft of the silk appeared in stunning clarity that even his vampire eyes could appreciate. The silk was, indeed, excellent work - they would pay a good price for here in Delft, and Paris, and London, too. 

A cluster of iridescence suddenly appeared in the lens, and Matthew gaped for a moment before realizing he was looking at a fly - or rather, the multicolored, many-planed surface of its eye. Amazing. Had all flies always looked thus? He leaned closer, fascinated. Were those hairs upon the fly's back - and could he really see the jointure of its legs? What caused the eye to color so? His mind was working faster, wondering what other secrets might be hiding. If one could fix a lens on the heavens to chart the stars, could one turn it inwards towards the things of earth - to cloth, to an insect’s eye - to blood?

“Who did you say made this?” he asked, gesturing with the round of glass, possibilities heavy in his hand.

“One of our guild members - keeps a house on the Hippolytusbuurt. Van Leeuwenhoek.”

_ God, what a name.  _ “Can you introduce me?”

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I had this idea that after Matthew and Diana return to their original timeline after the events in Shadow of Night, Philippe orders historical!Matthew out of England for a while so they can wait until everyone who met Diana died and there'd be fewer awkward questions about his wife. So where to send him? I wanted him to be at a crossroads of not only science, but art as well - and 17th Century Delft seemed as good a place as any. (Sadly, Jan Vermeer didn't quite get into the story, though at the time, he was doing some of the genre paintings to which Matthew alludes.)
> 
> In the style of the 17th century Dutch, both vampires have the patronymic of Philipzoon - the son of Philippe. Baldwin's additional nickname, der Rodewulf, means exactly what it looks like - the Red Wolf. (I love the idea of people giving Baldwin terrifying nicknames.)
> 
> I'm playing a little fast and loose with science history here - Antonie Van Leeuwenhoek was, indeed, a pioneer in microscope technology, but more for his ability to create lenses with extremely high magnifications, something he did with extremely small lenses made of tiny bubbles of glass. But he started with an interest in optics because of his original trade as a draper and would have been familiar with the type of magnifier described here. I think at some point in ADOW, Matthew makes mention of meeting Robert Hooke, who pre-dates Van Leeuwenhoek by a few years on the timeline of relevant science developments relating to microscopes. I'm choosing to willfully ignore that.


End file.
